Gluttony
by Insomniac Owl
Summary: Somewhere along the line, in the process of devouring each others’ love, they had devoured each other as well. [SasukeNaruto]


**Gluttony**

_By Insomniac Owl_

-

The first time he really kissed him it was raining. They were both wet, and his hair was even messier than usual, sticking up every which way and dripping. When he pressed his fingers into it, water ran down his hands.

His eyes widened - he himself had been surprised, though he wasn't sure why. It had been an impulse, to take him by the arm and kiss him. It wasn't intimate, wasn't anything special, just a soft peck on the lips, and that was all.

It quickly became more.

After missions, then, after every practice. Behind buildings, in one house or the other, kissing one another. No one suspected a thing. They acted completely normal with each other everywhere else, with everyone else, still bickering and fighting as usual, but when they were alone, when they were hidden, feelings came out.

Violent, desperate, forceful. They kissed one another with raw emotion; though love, hate, or something else neither was ever completely sure. They kissed, and that was all there was. Only each other, only those touches and whispers that said so much yet so little.

Can the blind speak of things they have never seen?

They ate each other's love and questioned nothing. It was just the way things were.

It was just the way things had always been, with a new twist. Now there was the element of love, instead of rivalry. Attention, instead of rejection. It was the same, yet so different it was painful. Neither knew quite what to do; they simply accepted things for what they were and made the best of what they had. Made the best of each other.

The first time they had sex was different, to say the least. It had been raining - again - and they'd taken shelter in his house, together, sipping tea and talking in soft voices. A touch was given, taken, doors had closed and clothes had slipped off.

It was clumsy, awkward, a first for both. But somehow, it was no different than the kisses they exchanged. It was still violent, still desperate and forceful, as if trying to break one another, to see who would shatter first. To see who would first give up, give out, give in.

Waking up the next morning, he asked himself why. He questioned, there, in bed beside him, why this was happening, why he felt like he needed the other boy this badly, but he came up with no response. It was not a simple question; it was not one he could answer. And, somehow, he knew without asking that neither of them knew. It was just the way things were.

It was just the way, that day almost a year ago now, in the rain with his eyes full of blue and blond reflection, that he had made it. It was the way they had created it, crafted it, shaped it to suit their needs and desires. They gave and took, fashioning for themselves a world in sharp definition, where nothing was questioned because it didn't need to be. So he shut away his uncertainties, took the other boy in his arms, and accepted it.

And as the blond woke, groggy and barely awake, he said words that had defined them unknowingly since the beginning. He proclaimed his love in a hoarse mumble, and strengthened what already was.

They met in a café one day, unexpectedly, he stopping by for cup of tea, the other for some kind of whipped-cream sugar drink, and they sat and talked. They kept their distance from one another then, only words passing between them, talking of days long gone, when dreams had been all there was. Now there was more than dreams, though they still existed. There was more, but things were just as simple, just as clear.

They ignored the complications.

The blond became Hokage one day, just as he'd dreamed so long ago. And he came to watch the ceremony, standing in the back, close enough to see, yet far enough to be hidden. He watched the robe be draped over his shoulders, listened as he recited the oath binding him to his land and now, to his people. And somewhere, deep inside, he'd feared he'd lost him. Lost him, though things were too simple to permit it. Too simple to break things like that.

There was a party after, a celebration, and he kept away, though he'd been invited. And afterward, on his porch in the darkness, he confronted him, questioning. A smirk on his lips, a smirk so like one he himself would give, he assured him nothing had changed. And he grabbed him, pressing his lips savagely to his, just to make sure. They kissed just as they always had, desperate, violent, forceful, assuring each other and themselves.

They stumbled through the door, so tangled up in one another it was a miracle they managed it, mouths pressed together, bodies intertwined. His back slammed against the wall, the other's hands already at the hem of his pants, desperately. And there, on the couch in his living room, it happened again.

Give and take. Steal and obtain.

Things hadn't changed after all.

They became careless with time, taking less trouble to ensure that they were alone. They kissed in doorways, briefly, and behind corners people could walk around at any moment and see them, together. But for some reason they didn't care. This was what their meetings had become, never mind that the risk of being found out was higher than ever because of their behavior.

People found out eventually of course, as they'd somehow expected from the beginning. There were awkward smiles, uncomfortable conversations, but the idea sank in with time, and people grew to accept that this was the way things were. There were of course, still those who disagreed, who said they should never be together, but they were too set in their ways by that point, too caught up in consuming one another's love. Years of secret meetings, some spontaneous, some only appearing so, had made things concrete, unchangeable. The way things were. And who was to tell them that things couldn't be this way? Who was to tell the Hokage and the top ANBU captain what to do?

They continued then, in secret because that was how things had always been, an unchanging familiarity. Sometimes he needed him. Sometimes it was the other way around. But either way, they came together as before, once a month, once a week, it didn't matter. They were there for each other, they were willing to give, and just as willing to take.

A year passed; they were nineteen and living together. Sometimes they sat on the couch, hand in hand and were silent, but more often than not that would escalate into kisses, touches, hot breath on each other's skin and then- But they needed it. They gave and take and devoured each other's love like ravenous wolves. When they had nothing, they were restless yet content, but when they had, they could never have enough. They were never satisfied, and they grew more desperate together, more needy, more forceful. Pushed until they shoved, bent until they broke, gave and took and took again.

They had their first real fight when they were twenty. It was over something stupid, as all their squabbles were, but it escalated into something those squabbles never had. Just as they were never satisfied with each other's love, nor were they satisfied in their arguments. They yelled, screamed, fought one another savagely. And, at the end of it, panting and glaring across the room at each other, he spat a bit of blood from his mouth and left, slamming the door behind him.

He wandered the streets for over an hour, pacing like a caged animal, unable to decide what to do. He ended up sitting in an all night café, sipping a single cup of tea until it had gone cold. This had never happened before, he thought numbly, staring into the depths of his cup. He didn't know what to do.

But the next night it was as if nothing had ever happened. He returned that morning and collapsed on the couch, exhausted from simple lack of sleep. And when he awoke that night the blond was standing at the stove, cooking dinner. He sat up and received a grin, and an inquiry as to whether or not he liked steamed carrots. He shrugged, and they ate steamed carrots and rice in silence, eyes down, words unspoken hanging between them.

Once the plates had been put away, they sat on the couch as was their custom, and he impulsively reached over, brought their lips together, and kissed him fiercely. The blond kissed him back, and just as the first time, clothes fell off under nimble hands, fell to the floor and were forgotten.

Their argument was forgotten as well. Pushed to the back of their minds where it hovered, unknown, in silence. They forgot it, and things returned to how they had been.

When they argued again, the same pattern was followed. In less than two hours it was gone and they were together once more, desperate, needy. Unable to stay apart for long, because they knew no other way to live.

It was the way things were.

The way things had always been.

And, they assumed, the way things always would be.

But, just as their kisses had been, their meetings, these fights quickly became more frequent. They grew to fight as much as they kissed, kiss as much as they fought. People noticed and they whispered of it, told each other that they would fall and be consumed.

But they were not. They continued to act as if the fights never happened, as if they were had been erased and never existed. They wrapped themselves in each other's love and forgot the problems.

But the problems grew, unknown, unacknowledged, in the back of their minds where they piled the arguments. They grew like a cancer, diagnosed but untreated.

Neither could treat that cancer.

Maybe it was inevitable, in the end, that they would fall apart. Maybe it was fated from the beginning, doomed from the start. Maybe it was all an accident to begin with. But they hoped, as the distance between them grew and grew, as the times spent together shortend and times out on missions lengthened, that it hadn't been. That, somewhere along the line, they had earned something, been given something for their troubles, for the love they had given and devoured in their turn.

They fought one night, late at night, and he sat at that same café for hours, staring into another cup of tea, thinking, wondering. He never returned.

It was accepted without words, without fanfare. They simply fell apart, and found themselves to be no more. What had gone on for years had disappeared, and they were alone.

They were both twenty two.

When they saw each other on the street, they passed in silence, passing shadows, passing ghosts. Two strangers, nothing more. When he was summoned to the Hokage's office for a mission, he always wore his mask. Their eyes never met, they never fell back into the pattern that had, over the years, become routine.

He would wake up sometimes, expecting to see that tousled blond head lying beside him, and his stomach would drop when his eyes met only sheets. Then he would sigh, close his eyes for a few moments, and roll out of bed.

Somewhere along the line, in the process of devouring each others' love, they had devoured each other.

And there was no happy ending.

Just two hollow men, devouring.

Just two hollow men, devoured.

**finis**


End file.
